Advances in automation and high throughput technologies have made it possible to perform high throughput synthesis and testing of molecules, for example, biomolecules and drugs. Commonly used apparatuses for high throughput synthesis and screening involve use of multi-well plates or micro-plates. Conventional multi-well plates and apparatuses provide limited supply of reagents which do not provide highly efficient synthesis of the products.
A continuous exchange format multi-well plate provides higher yields of the products synthesized in a high throughput manner because it allows for constant supply of chemicals required for the synthesis reaction and removal of inhibitory byproducts through porous membranes. An example of continuous exchange format multi-well plate is shown in FIG. 1B where the porous membrane is present in horizontal orientation. In the horizontal orientation, heavy molecules in the reaction mixture, for example aggregated proteins or ribosome in case of cell free protein synthesis, can settle down on the membrane, thereby blocking the membrane pores and hampering exchange of chemicals and inhibitory byproducts which in turn inhibits the reaction taking place in the reaction mixture.
Further, prior art multi-well devices also suffer from inconsistency and lack of uniformity between the reaction mixtures in different wells. For example, differences in the reagent concentrations in different wells of a multi-well apparatus can affect the results of the high throughput screening.